The Expanding and Evolving Economy

Abstract

Durham’s agriculture evolved to meet increasing needs; some farmers in the two parishes focused on grain, others on livestock. Durham had ample pasture from unenclosed waste but the three villages also had several closes and fields in severalty. Larger scale enclosure began in the 1580s, individually and collectively. Evidence of changing practices is seen in the bishop’s courts, both increasingly large herds and departures from communal agriculture. Individualism was tolerated as long as the animals and crops of others were not damaged. The parishes remained rural and agricultural; despite earlier references to it as a town, Sedgefield did not urbanize and there were few full-time artisans in the parishes. Spinning wool was common, and some farmers made malt in commercial quantities. Servants were common in the villages and while information is scarce, they appeared to be paid the same as servants elsewhere in England. Economic growth was made possible by local and regional credit networks, and in the seventeenth century yeomen were taking out loans of several hundred pounds and repaying them swiftly.